This got discussed a bit in the comments, and because people often don’t read comments, I’m going to re-shape what I said, and put it up here.

Released into the wild

The words and images we make have one set of meanings to ourselves, as their makers, but once we release them into the wild they become anybody’s, to interpret as they want.

Readers: you know who you are

I suppose people could read something like the Raylene saga and conclude that I’m too cruel and vicious by half, as doms go, or they could decide that I spend far too much time fretting about what’s ok to do, and so I’m too soft and conciliatory as doms go. Or both.

I think I’m telling the story of a dom who tries to do the right thing, and who tries to tell the truth about what that’s like and what it involves. There’s stuff about the pleasures of being a bit cruel, in the Raylene saga, but there’s also stuff about love, self-doubt, and, as far I can know them as a dom, the pleasures of surrender. But it would be easy to quote this blog accurately though selectively, and make me sound, well, anything, good or bad, as desired.

And that’s only the people who don’t disapprove of male doms as such. Most people wouldn’t get far past a sentence like, “I brought the cane down across her ass,” before deciding this Jaime fellow is a blot on the landscape’s fine silk tie.

But that’s talking mostly about deliberate or ideological misreadings. There’s also chance. I think that the word I’m most likely accidently to leave out of a sentence is the word “not”. So that I might be stuck with having posted some abomination like, “No matter how horny they might be feeling, men should try to talk to women wearing headphones.” At least until I re-read the post and go into an editing frenzy, three letters long.

Or, more importantly, someone can read something I wrote and see the unconscious and unexamined bias or prejudice I left in it, and read it against the grain of what I thought I was saying. That is, readers can get things right, about my own writing, that I missed.

The eyes of the beholders (image by Rene Magritte)

Certainly, if I were running for office (“Vote Jerusalem Mortimer, or I’ll have you in irons! Or, at least, nipple clamps!”) and someone found my blog, that’d be the death of my campaign right there. My words would be hostages.

But I’m not really whinging about how words and images slip further out of our grasp than we expect when we release them. So they should. Live, little pixels! Be free!

Words and images finish up in the eye of the beholder, and we who make them just have to accept it.

While Lynette fiddled with the camera I swished the bamboo cane a couple of times, letting it speed past Raylene’s ass. The sound and then the wind of it unnerved her, and she flinched, buttocks clenching. Then, knowing that was wrong and possibly punishable, she arched her ass up again.

“Ready.” Lynette had the camera pointed at me, rather than Raylene. Then she moved it, presumably to frame Raylene’s ass and catch the reaction when the cane actually landed.

Accepting “good girl” is accepting that the dom’s judgement is worth heeding. And it means enjoying having his or her approval.

Dorabella smiled at me. I might have been being over-cautious. But she said, “Thank you. Actually, I quite like hearing you say it. Doesn’t give you the right to cane me, though.”

“Raylene, would I start with a caning?”

Raylene raised her head as far as she could, which wasn’t far. “You spanked me, master. To begin with. And I guarantee that Bellie would -“

“Rayyyy-lene.” Raylene’s head dropped again. I couldn’t see her face, but I could imagine her smirk. I kept my face straight. “Anyway, Dorabella, I wouldn’t do anything without your consent. And you’re still a good girl.”

She smiled, with dimples. “Thank you. On both counts.”

Irony is an ineffective shield. ‘Good girl’ still has power, even if accepted ironically

So I looked back at Lynette, patiently waiting through this comedy. She said, “Oh, you can call me ‘good girl’ too. It’s meant to be patronising. But I take it as a kind of parody.”

“Yeah, it is parody.” I was going to go on and say that even so, part of the way in which it felt good, below the layers of irony, was in submission responding to dominance. Safe, approving, warm dominance, but dominance just the same.

But I stopped in time. Better to let her feel she’d won a point than put her on her guard.

“Good girl” has most power when it’s whispered

“But you’re still a good girl, too. Thanks for doing the filming.”

Lynette smiled. She liked praise. And, more dangerously for her, she was starting to like my approval.

I pulled her closer, this time, rather than step towards her, and kissed her, gently, one hand on her ass. No smacks. I whispered, “Good girl.”

She closed her eyes, then said, “I know what you’re doing.”

But she was smiling. I said, “Does it make any difference?”

She didn’t answer. I kissed her again.

But it was time. I stepped back and raised the cane. “Raylene.”

“Yes, master.” In high, sing-song soprano. She was making her voice sound as cherubic as she could.

Way back in the late 20th century, there was a time when good liberals all agreed that pornography was bad.

Last year Pandora Blake, feminist spanko porn-maker took on anti-porn bigots and won. (Or they took her on and lost.) Honestly, they should just call this The Pandora Blake Award, from now on

The politics of that, and the weird alliance it involved between Christian right activists, feminists who claimed they opposed sex if it had men in it (plus the men they had sex with) is sad and hilarious, but that’s a topic for another day.

The movement still exists, but it’ll never wield the same social or even political power again. However, a by-product of that movement was a passionate debate over the difference between erotica and pornography.

That’s because we – meaning pretty well all humans – like looking at movies and images of sexy people, and sexy people doing sexy things. This is something we share with the other higher primates, as it turns out.

Anyway, it became necessary to say that some sexy movies or images weren’t pornography, so they’d escape any blanket condemnation or ban.

It became one of those irregular verbs:

he faps to horrible women-hating filth;

you fap to pornography;

I fap to erotica.

Anyway, no-one ever managed a useful way of distinguishing these three terms. Which, for example, is this?

It’s a picture of a woman glowing red from recent cruel treatment. The model’s head has been removed from the image, and the photograph invites the viewer to focus only on her ass.

Andrea Dworkin, weeping bitter tears, would have said the image steals her personhood: she’s just a body, a woman beaten. That’s the argument for it being porn.

On the other hand, the red is from a hand spanking desired and enjoyed by both parties, and her head was edited out (and her cunt obscured) to respect the model’s wishes. The spanking was given, and the photo taken, by her lover, your humble narrator and servant. It’s a record of love.

So is it erotic, or pornographic? I think it’s both, because to me there’s little difference between the words except for their rhetorical overtones.

Aristotle, oddly enough, sorted this issue out in the 4th Century BCE, when he said that the difference between a king and a tyrant is that a tyrant is a king of whom the speaker disapproves. Following Aristotle, horrible woman-hating filthy pornography is erotica that someone disapproves of, while erotica is pornography (etc) that someone approves of.

Anyway, I think it’s a sexy image. I hope you like it.

One other suggested distinction is that erotica is indirect, subtle, symbolic, and therefore good, while pornography is blatant and blunt, and therefore bad.

It had puzzled me that Dorabella approved of my squeezing Lynette’s ass. From her point of view I should be paying attention to her. Or to her sister, considering that I was Raylene’s lover and she was naked over her own desk, waiting for the next cane stroke to fall.

But Lynette had been chasing her ass for days, at least, and Dorabella didn’t do girls. So she was relieved that Raylene and I were keeping Lynette occupied. Raylene, meanwhile, knew that the better I entertained Lynette, the more likely Lynette was to come to her bedroom that night and join us. And if Lynette was sexually open to me as well as her, then Raylene would have a better time.

But I let go of Lynette’s ass reluctantly, and held up the phone I’d been smacking her with. She’d tucked the cane awkwardly under her left arm, perhaps because she’d noted how ungainly Dorabella’s strategy of holding it between her thighs had made her. So she had her right hand free, and she took the phone. I said, “Can you take over as camerawoman? Dorabella’s got her hands full, now.”

Now you see it…

Dorabella looked at me, exasperated, and poked her tongue out. I was still speaking to Lynette. “That’d be the Dorabella who wants a spanking.” The tongue disappeared.

I’d meant to stir up more unconvincing defiance from Dorabella, with that remark. Her sudden compliance was a surprise. I expected it would set some of the agenda for Dorabella and me, when we were together tomorrow. A conversation-starter, at least.

Lynette was facing me, so she hadn’t seen the appearance and sudden withdrawal of Dorabella’s sweetly pink tongue. She kissed me again, then leaned back to study my face, as if it were a strange new plant, or insect. “You just think everybody wants a spanking.” She whispered that. We were still conspirators.

I didn’t whisper. “No. It’s a little bit evidence-based. For example I’m not sure that you do. I don’t have any data from you, either way. But statistically the odds are that you don’t.”

“Hmmm.”

Not quite safe emotional ground, for Lynette. But she wasn’t going to blink, while Raylene was getting the cane

“Though you like watching. When the girl’s gorgeous enough.” That, to my amazement, made her blush. She was embarrassed by her reaction to Raylene, or at least to Raylene being caned. That, in turn, gave me a moment of shame. I’d seen Lynette as super-humanly self-possessed. I hadn’t expected her to be feeling out of her depth, and so I hadn’t seen it.

Lynette swallowed. She’d had her hands on Raylene’s ass earlier that morning, but this was different. Now Raylene was being caned, there was colour there, and corrugations, and cunt: the smell of arousal.

But after a second she frowned, then her face lightened. “All right.” She got up and came to my side of the desk where Raylene waited, bent over, head down. She traced her finger-tips down Raylene’s marks. “They’re raised,” she said, surprised.

“And hot?”

“Oh, very hot.”

I said, “Dorabella.”

“Yes?” Dorabella had been filming Lynette’s hand, stroking her sister, the finger-tips straying into the tender, sensitive valley between her buttocks. But she looked over at me.

“Give me the phone.” Dorabella held it out, a little puzzled. Did I think she’d done a bad job? But I held her hand and squeezed reassuringly as I took the phone from her. “And pass me the cane.”

She reached between her thighs, where she’d been holding it by keeping her legs tight together. Our eyes met as I took it from her. “I want you to go round to the front of the desk now, love. Put your hands on Raylene’s shoulders, and hold her down. I don’t want her upper body to lose contact with the desk, is that understood?”

Dorabella nodded. She looked awed, wondering. I said, “She’ll can’t hold herself down, and that’s only going to get her into trouble. It’s up to you.”

Dorabella shrugged. Life was full of puzzles, like why I would care if Raylene got herself into more trouble. But she did as I’d asked, crossing in front of me, then bending down to kiss Raylene’s forehead. She straightened up and rested her hands on Raylene’s shoulders.

I didn’t say, “Good girl.” She knew she was being obedient, and there was no need to rub it in. Instead I said, “Hold her down hard, Dorabella. If she has to get extra punishment because you let her get up, you’ll get the same.”

“I bloody well will not!” Dorabella tried to sound defiant, but she pressed more firmly down on Raylene’s shoulders. She didn’t trust herself, I thought, to say ‘no’ if I gave Raylene an extra couple of strokes and then told her to take her place beside her sister. Best to make sure that choice didn’t have to be made.

I approved. I didn’t want to give Raylene extra strokes, so Dorabella’s blushing compliance was perfect.

Lynette still had one hand idly stroking Raylene’s left set of lines and welts, but she was watching Dorabella, now. The robe was nearly open to Dorabella’s waist, though her breasts somehow managed to stay inside its material.

“Lynette?” I touched her shoulder, and she turned to face me. I picked up the cane, and held it out. After a pause she took it. “Thanks. If Raylene behaves, you’ll only need to hold on to it for the next six strokes.”

Lynette quirked her mouth. “Oh, ‘if’. So it might be for eight strokes. Or ten. Or 20.”

She was getting the hang of this thing, doing no good at all for Raylene’s peace of mind. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. We were still conspirators. I took her shoulder, and stepped towards her.

If she’d been Raylene or Dorabella, I’d have pulled her to me. But I paused just before kissing her, and she kissed me. She put her arms around me, holding the cane awkwardly in the middle, as Dorabella had.

Then I stepped back and she followed me, and I slid my hands down her back, to stroke, then cup, her little ass. I smacked her lightly with the phone, and tightened my grip. Delicious muscles, smooth under a slight layer of girl plumpness. She sighed and leaned her body forward.

I said, “Muh!” when her belly suddenly pressed against my cock. She grinned lazily, satisfied, knowing the effect she was having. I caught Dorabella’s eye. She was amused again. I was funny.

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I saw the beautiful and ethically based Gretel to the airport today. Me, I’m not beautiful, and I’m ethically base. Anyway, she’s now in the air over Antarctica, and I’m home, which is now Gretel-less.

I’ll be writing more often soon, about Gretel, and then getting back to the Raylene story.

For now, please indulge me in my current obsession for images of Leda and Zeus, the swan.

This blog, and this blogger, have pretty much turned into the Gretel fan club. If it’s not about Gretel, her cleverness, wit, ethical base and, oh, also hotness, I don’t currently want to write it or think about it.

The photo below was taken before we went out for dinner last night. So it’s just a playful belt spanking you can see glowing so very prettily there. Nothing brutal. Add very stylish knickers, skin the colour of cream, at least in the unwhipped areas, and you have a really elegant image.

She wore a “spank me and fuck me” little kilt to the restaurant, with fishnets, and attracted a bit of attention. The proprietor even came out and did all the things that gauchos do instead of kissing a lady’s hand, when they want to show off to a hot girl.

So I had that thing men get when they’re squiring the hottest girl in the room around. Not mature, I guess, but fun.

Raylene looked at me. Her t-shirt hadn’t been much protection or cover, but it had been something. It had meant she wasn’t quite naked. Losing it made her feel more vulnerable. She turned to face Lynette, and coughed again. Then there were tears welling in her eyes.

There was no way she could, or should, be especially sorry about mildly winding up Lynette last night. The punishment I was giving her was so obviously disproportionate that she had to know that her caning had nothing to do with any fault on her part.

But a tear spilled, and began its tracking down her left cheek.

She was in the scene and setting, and she was a sorry girl saying her apologies and hoping to be forgiven. So long as the forgiveness wasn’t the boring kind that would mean that her caning was over. She said, “Lyneck”.

She coughed yet again and said, less hoarsely, “Lynette, I’m so sorry I was rude to you at dinner last night. I was a silly – ” she glanced at me – “rude little girl. And I’m learning my lesson now. I hope you forgive me. Please.”

Two more tears spilled. One on each cheek. It had to be a hard appeal to resist.

But Lynette looked at me. It seemed she was going to wait to take my cue.

I softened my voice. “That was good, Raylene. You’re a good girl. Now turn round. Show Lynette your marks. And remember you’ve got another dozen and a half to come. And a penalty stroke. Whether she forgives you or not.”

Raylene said, “yes, master.” She’d found her voice again. She turned her back to present her arse to Lynette, who looked, fascinated but no longer horrified, at the red-splotched and striped state of that arse. Then, without me having to tell her, Raylene put her hands on her head.

I said, again, “Good girl.” She nodded but didn’t speak.

Lynette looked at me, questioningly. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. We had a moment of complicity, deciding Raylene’s short-term fate. She formed the word, “forgive?” silently.

I shook my head. Lynette smiled, nodded and said, “Raylene?”

Raylene didn’t answer or turn to look back at Lynette. She stood still, naked, her ass striped and glowing, her hands on her head. She was showing me that she only did what I said. Lynette said, “Raylene. You’re getting punished. Rightly. And I hope you’re learning from it.” Raylene’s shoulders dropped. She’d hoped for the comfort of female sympathy.

Lynette took a deep breath. It was hard work, being cruel. “But if you want my forgiveness, you’ll have to ask me again. Later. After you’ve had your caning.”

Lynette frowned then, looked at me and silently mouthed, “ok?”

I was grinning like a wolf prepared to share a lamb. I nodded. I hadn’t expected Lynette to know so well what Raylene would like to hear. I wanted Lynette closer to me, I realised. Where she sat I couldn’t kiss her, and I wanted very much to do that.

I said, “Lynette?”

“Jaime?”

“Would you like to touch those marks? Across that stupid little girl’s ass? She earned them for you; you can run your hand over them now. If you like.”

There was a moment’s silence. Raylene’s shoulders rose. She’d liked that idea. But Lynette sat for a moment, thinking.

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